Artists, clammers mix at Cedar Key’s 47th annual art fest

Thursday

Mar 31, 2011 at 12:01 AM

Cedar Key, a small island town about an hour’s drive from Gainesville, is known for two things — its clams and its art.

By Alexandra HamiltonCorrespondent

Some people say the quiet island of Cedar Key is known for its clams. With its warm, shallow waters, the city boasts being one of the top producers of hard-shell clams in the United States. On the other hand, Mandy Cassiano, event coordinator of Cedar Key’s Old Florida Celebration of the Arts festival, says Cedar Key, a small island town about an hour’s drive from Gainesville, is known for two things — its clams and its art. “We have the clammers and the artists, it seems,” Cassiano says. “It’s a good mix.”This weekend, Cedar Key’s historic Second Street is all about the arts for the 47th annual Old Florida Celebration of the Arts festival, one of the oldest art festivals in the state of Florida. But the town’s famous clams will also be sold alongside the artworks of 120 artists from throughout the U.S. and as far away as California, Texas and Ontario, Canada.Artists specializing in fine art, jewelry, sculpture, painting, ceramics, glass and fiber will be attending the juried festival, including seven local artists from Gainesville — Miriam Novack, Virginia Chen, Hugo Cruz, Diana Christiansen, Jack Wicks, Greg Stephens and John Moran.The top 15 artists chosen by Roy Slade, director emeritus of Cranbrook Art Museum and former director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, will receive prizes totaling $10,000. Purchase awards totaling $7,000 are also being given to artists.Cassiano says she expects about 20,000 people will attend the two-day festival, which is free and open to the public. Different from previous years’ festivals, this year’s event will feature a new form of entertainment — art cars. Four cars decorated to a theme by artists from Alabama, Georgia, Virginia and Florida, including a car from Alabama titled “Aliens on Board” by Jim Shores, will be on display for people to view.Local bands also performing during the event including Whitey Markle & The Swamprooters, The Evans Acoustic Reunion, a band of family members that plays a wide range of music, and a Celtic duo that features Lisa Lynne, a harpist from California, and George Tortorelli, a bamboo flutist who has been living in Gainesville for the past 30 years.Apart from the wide range of artworks people will be able to peruse and purchase throughout Saturday and Sunday, the most unique feature about the event is the food it sells, Cassiano says.Local civic organizations, school groups and church groups are selling a wide variety of food items, including locally caught seafood, oysters, Cedar Key’s famous steamed clams from the Cedar Key Aquaculture Association Inc., hamburgers and hotdogs, as well as a variety of desserts and beverages. No outside vendors are allowed to sell food at the festival.“Everybody loves the food,” Cassiano says. “It’s different from typical festivals.”Moran, the Florida nature photographer from Gainesville who has appeared in art shows throughout Florida since 1998, is participating in the festival for the first time. He says he’s looking forward to this weekend’s event because of its location in Cedar Key; with the island’s surrounding waters and lack of drive-thru traffic, he says it’s his favorite coastal destination in the state.“I just love Cedar Key,” Moran says. “It’s a remarkable town with a distinct sense of place.”Novack, an artist who has a unique style of painting that features fractured images and colorful, intricate patterns, has been participating in the festival for about five years.She says when people look at her art, “it’s like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope.” Many of her pieces exhibit themes of yoga, meditation, music, peace, Jerusalem, and some also exhibit beautiful nature scenes of Cedar Key, which are all being featured at the event.“When the weather is great, there’s just nothing more beautiful,” Novack says of Cedar Key.